In harvesting, seed cotton is stripped or picked from the plant, deposited in a trailer or other vehicle, and transported to a cotton gin. The cotton gin has apparatus for receiving the seed cotton, removing the seeds, cleaning the cotton fiber, and pressing the fiber into bales for transport to textile mills or compresses for further operation.
Prior to the present invention, trash or foreign matter in cotton fiber, or lint, presented significant problems to cotton producers and textile mills. High trash contents reduces the price the producer receives for the product. Efforts to further clean the fiber in the gin to reduce trash levels caused fiber damage by breaking and tangling the fiber. This fiber damage decreases the quality of the resulting yarn and cloth. The present invention performs the fiber cleaning needed by the producer for good returns without causing damage to the fiber which would reduce the quality of textiles made from the fiber.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,528,725 to Horn et al discloses a gin lint cleaner that utilizes a feed plate to direct the ginned fiber onto a downstream saw cylinder. Horn et al then uses sharp-edged grid bars to further engage the ginned fiber with the downstream cylinder. The action of a second downstream saw cylinder and deflector remove the lint from the first cylinder and deposit the lint onto a second cylinder. Horn et al then uses round blunt bars, a seating bar, sharp-edged grid bars, a trash bar, and a combing bar. Between the feed plate, saw to saw interaction, and the combing bars, the ginned fiber is subject to considerable abrasion which tends to cause more fiber breakage. Therefore, there is still a need in the art for more efficient gin fiber cleaning which is capable of cleaning fiber with lower levels of fiber breakage and at lower energy costs.